When he got that far, they saw Ledgetak coming back.
When he was close enough to be heard without raising his voice, he spoke.
“Recovering the bolts is out of the question after all.
The impact on a hit is more than they can withstand, so even the ones that look mostly intact can’t really be reused.
I’ve reconfirmed that if you want to use a crossbow made of ebonyum and still reuse the bolts, you end up having to make the bolts out of ebonyum as well.
But as single‑use ammunition, they work just fine.”
Saying this, Ledgetak handed Skelvis the six bent and broken bolts he had managed to retrieve.
Skelvis took them because Ledgetak was holding them out to him, but he was a little confused as to what this meant.
Ledgetak went on.
“If you take them back to the village and sell them, they ought to be worth at least a few coins for the scrap iron, no?”
Hearing that, Skelvis bowed over and over, thanking him.
Ledgetak glanced back at Medipl and said,
“I told you to wait so I could mention that I wanted to treat you to a meal sometime.
I noticed you go to register for the exam almost every year, and if it looks like you will be doing the same this year, I wanted to suggest we go to a decent restaurant in the Grand Fief together.”
“Your words alone are more than enough.
Thank you.”
“I don’t intend to leave it at just words, so keep that in mind.”
With that, Ledgetak looked ahead for a moment, then opened his mouth again.
“If I fall any farther behind the viscount, it’ll become a problem, so I’d better be going.”
He said his goodbyes, mounted his horse, and set off, the bear lumbering after him.
Skelvis, as a matter of courtesy to a nobleman who was also his guest, took off his hat and bowed toward the receding back whether the man looked back or not, and Rimas followed his example.
Once Ledgetak had gone some distance, they resumed their own journey.
Rimas put a question that had been nagging at him to Medipl.
“Teacher, does this Ledgetak keep a bear as a pet?”
“Every Ranger raises an animal as a companion.
In Ledgetak’s case, he chose a bear.”
“A bear must be really strong, so it must be a big help.”
“Even if it’s strong, there are plenty of monsters stronger than that, so rangers don’t always choose a ferocious beast as their companion.
I’ve heard what matters most is that the Ranger and the companion can truly resonate with one another.
Those emotional factors are important, and they also have to think about how easy the animal is to capture, and whether they can afford to keep it, whether it’s easy to get feed for it, whether the climate suits it, and so on—what you might call economic conditions.
A Ranger who mostly works in the forest can usually find a lot of food for the companion, but not always.
Just the cost of feeding a bear alone must be considerable.
And unlike ordinary bears, a Ranger’s bear doesn’t hibernate in winter, so it costs even more to keep.
I’ve even heard that some Rangers figure they ride horses all the time anyway, so they simply choose a horse as their companion.
Just now, Lord Ledgetak was riding a horse and leading a bear, so if he’s paying for both of them himself, he has to cover the cost for both.
Still, I suspect the horse he was riding actually belongs to the viscount.
“Wouldn’t he be making a lot of money?
Warmonger is really high, isn’t it?
I’ve never seen anyone pay out five thousand coins at once before.”
“Your father made five thousand coins in one go, and that’s an impressive feat in its own right.”
At that, Skelvis spoke up.
“I haven’t had many occasions myself where I received that kind of money in a single deal.
And it’s not as if all of that is pure profit.
The bolts in question are something I bought a long time ago, but they never sold in large quantities, so even though I got them cheap at first and bought a lot, it’s a product I regretted buying for a very long time.”
“Even so, it’s fortunate you managed to move them all at once.
And still, you closed a big deal and actually held that kind of money in your hands—most people never do.
I’ve neither earned nor received a sum like that.
My salary as a teacher isn’t five thousand a month; it’s four thousand five hundred coins.”
This was new to Rimas, and it startled him.
“A teacher’s salary is only that much?”
“For an elf, just being accepted as a teacher at all is something to be grateful for.”
“I never imagined you only got paid that much.”
“Even so, when I’m at the castle I get room and board, and my wife works there as a maid, so things aren’t all that difficult.”
“But when you travel on circuit like this, doesn’t that cost you money?”
“It’s the duty of the villages I visit to provide the teacher’s meals and a place to sleep, and usually that comes out of the village headman’s household, so it doesn’t cost me anything and the hospitality is rarely too poor.”
“Someday, Teacher, you’re going to be the kind of man who makes ten thousand coins a month.”
“Thank you for saying so.
And I think you, Rimas, are going to be the kind of person for whom ten thousand coins a month is nothing.”
“Thank you, Teacher.”
Ten thousand coins a month was a phrase parents among the commoners often used with their children.
Wherever you went, parents in commoner families hoped their children would someday have a good job that paid ten thousand coins a month, and they would trade that phrase back and forth with family and neighbors.
For some reason, ten thousand coins was widely spoken of, by his father Skelvis and many others, as the line that separated those with a “decent job” from those without one, and Rimas had grown up hearing that.
Since they were already talking about money and monthly income, Skelvis spoke up again.
“Books are expensive, aren’t they?
Even if you sell one now and then…”
“Anyone rich enough to buy books lives in the lord’s castle‑town.
And in the castle‑town there are human teachers who don’t travel around like I do, but reside inside the castle.”
“That makes sense.
I’m sorry.
I suppose they’re the ones who sell most of the books.”
“Yes, that’s right.
Still, whether they sell or not, I always carry books for sale with me, as much for my own reading as anything else.”
Rimas asked,
“But you already know so much, Teacher.
Do you still study more?”
“I’m planning to sit for the Imperial Senior Teacher Examination someday, so I have to study hard.
That exam is no joke.
It’s the exam that grants you the right to study and teach at the Imperial University.
If I pass, even an elf like me is granted Imperial citizenship on the spot.”
“Didn’t you say last time that citizenship comes automatically over time?”
“That’s true.
elf or dwarf, if you serve the Empire in the public sphere for fifty years, you can receive Imperial citizenship.
But fifty years isn’t such a short time even for an elf, at least in certain respects.
And on top of that, if my wife is to receive citizenship as well, we have to add another ten years.
The citizenship granted to a citizen’s spouse is yet another category.
My wife and I have decided not to have a child until we both become citizens, because any child we had now wouldn’t be born an Imperial citizen.
So if we want to see a child sooner, it’s better that I pass the exam.”
Elves often had little interest in having children at all, but Skelvis could plainly sense that part of Medipl and his wife’s desire for a child came from wanting that child to be born an Imperial citizen from the start.
Rimas, apparently not sensitive to such nuances, simply kept the conversation going.
“But if everyone who works for the Empire can get citizenship, how come I feel like I’ve never met anyone with citizenship except elves?”
“Orcs and goblins living past fifty is about as hard as a human living past a hundred.
So even if they started serving the Empire the moment they were born, it would be impossible.
Dwarves live long enough for it, but dwarves are rare in the Empire, and most of them live under the rule of the deoegle race, so in practice only elves really qualify.”
“Either way, Teacher, you’re smart and you work hard, so I’m sure you’ll pass.”
“It’s not an exam you pass on merit alone, and elves have to score higher than humans to be accepted, so it isn’t that easy.”
“Huh?
How does that make sense?
Exams are supposed to be fair.”
“Elves live a long time, so once they pass, they tend to work for a very long period.
This leads to stagnation among the faculty and causes the advancement of scholarship to fall into a rut.
Whether elves or humans, occupying a position for too long makes it easy to become complacent, and that is an unavoidable reality.
Humans at least die within a few decades.
And unless they’re truly a prodigy who passes very young, considering the average age at which people pass the Imperial Senior Education Examination, humans don’t actually have all that many active years.
The exam is also a gateway to the university, where you do research as well, so it’s not enough to be good at teaching; you have to contribute to the advancement of scholarship too, so in its way the system has sound reasons.
Frankly, the very fact that the Empire offers elves an opportunity at all is something we should be deeply grateful for.
And more importantly…”
Here Medipl broke off, winked one eye at Rimas, and added with a touch of humor,
“More importantly, elves can study for centuries and sit the exam hundreds of times, so in truth we’re more advantaged than humans.”
“Ha ha.
When you put it like that, it does sound fair.”
Rimas laughed, and Skelvis joined him.
Pleased with the reaction, Medipl smiled as well, and they continued along the road together, chatting idly as they went.
When the sun had climbed up toward midday, Medipl said,
“What shall we do about lunch?
Even at a leisurely pace, we’ll be at Whitestone in two hours or so.
Would you rather wait and eat once we arrive?”
“When it’s just the two of us with the wagon like this, we usually just make do with Imperial rations.”
“Same here.
What traveler doesn’t?
In that case, shall we just eat as we walk?”
“As long as it’s all right with you, teacher, that’s what we usually do, so we don’t mind.”
So the three of them took food out of the load and began eating as they went.
Father and son, riding on the wagon, were in a much more comfortable position for eating than Medipl, but Medipl seemed used to eating without letting go of the reins of his stubborn donkey.
He held bread in one hand and a bottle of tea in the other, gripping the reins together with the hand that held the bottle.
Whenever he took a drink, the reins jiggled, but it didn’t seem to make handling the donkey or drinking the tea any harder.
When he had finished off the fairly large piece of bread and was left holding only the bottle of tea, Medipl turned to Rimas and asked a question.
“What’s the most important feature of Imperial rations?”
Rimas recalled what Medipl had taught him and answered.
“Imperial rations have been fixed by law since the days of the First Emperor, so throughout the continent a bottle of tea is five coins and a loaf of bread is four, and those prices haven’t changed in over a thousand years.
Each is formulated so that even if you eat nothing else but them for every meal, you won’t starve to death, and they’re enchanted with powerful preservation magic so that they won’t rot or spoil even after decades.
And they’re also, um, the foundation of the Imperial…”
“The basis of Imperial prices.”
“Right, that’s it.
I heard that before, but I didn’t really understand it, so it still doesn’t stick in my head.”
“That’s more than good enough.
There aren’t many students who can recite the textbook that precisely.
The characteristics of Imperial rations like the price of bread and tea are things you learn just by living, even if you never go to school.
The important thing is that to repeat the textbook the way you just did, you have to study hard.
You’re a boy who’s well suited to study.”
As he said this, Medipl suddenly cocked his head slightly.
Knowing that Medipl had heard something or sensed a presence, Rimas and Skelvis tensed up again.
However, since Medipl merely put the now empty bottle back into the luggage and still hadn’t taken the bow from his back, they also quickly decided it probably wasn’t anything dangerous.
It was some time before the people Medipl had heard came into view.
They had stopped on a relatively gentle slope and were eating lunch.
The three caught sight of Ledgetak among them and immediately realized they were the party of viscount Poarr Gardin.
Earlier, because his head had been bowed, Rimas hadn’t counted them, but now that he did he saw there were sixteen.
There were fewer horses than people, only about ten, and now he could see that they also had a freight wagon.
Rimas remembered realizing a wagon had gone past when they had passed them before, but because his head had been down he hadn’t known whether it was a carriage or a freight wagon.
It also occurred to him that the fact he hadn’t recognized what kind of wagon it was from the sound alone meant he must have been paying very little attention
The viscount’s party, however, seemed interested in them.
They were about to pass by, leaving the nobles and their retainers to their meal off the road, when the viscount’s party called out to them instead.
One of the men, who looked like a servant, shouted and came running toward them.
They had no choice but to stop.
The servant who had run up muttered to himself when he saw Medipl, even before explaining why he had called them over.
“What’s this brat doing walking around with a bow?”
Commoners were forbidden to carry weapons, and bows and arrows were weapons, so commoners were not allowed to buy, use, or possess them.
Skelvis wandered constantly outside the settled places, and itinerant teachers like Medipl did the same; without weapons, it would have been difficult for them to do their jobs.
People in such occupations were granted special permission to bear arms.
In consideration of the nature of elves, elf teachers were generally licensed to carry a bow as their weapon.
Rimas had learned this when he first met Medipl, because he had been curious and asked.
The viscount himself was a noble, but his servant was a commoner, so Medipl had no particular reason to greet him.
Medipl therefore kept his hat on, and with his hat on he looked like a boy in his late teens.
If a youth looks that young but wears fine clothes, you might assume he’s a noble; but his clothing wasn’t that of a noble and he wore no mark of rank, so in the servant’s eyes he was merely a boy with a weapon, and the fact that such a boy was walking around with a bow must have seemed strange to him.
Skelvis concluded that this servant was the youngest and lowest-ranking among the viscount’s household servants.
He was certain the boy had never left the viscount’s residence in the castle town and had rarely even been sent on errands, and was now following his lord out into the countryside for the first time.
Otherwise, he couldn’t have failed to recognize Medipl, even if the teacher was not particularly famous.
So that the servant wouldn’t misunderstand, Medipl removed his hat, revealing his ears, and said,
“I am Medipl, a schoolteacher of the demesne.”
Only then did the servant seem to understand.
“So you’re an elf.
That would explain it,” he said, though there was still a note of contempt in his tone.
Then, as if remembering why he’d come, he turned to Skelvis.
“You’re a peddler, right?
My lord wishes to see you.”
“Do you happen to know why he’s calling, or if he intends to buy something?”
“I’ve no idea.
I just got told to fetch you and ran over here in a hurry.”